Washington, George (1732–1792) American
general, first president of the United States
George Washington was born at Bridges Creek, near
Fredericksburg, Virginia, on 22 February 1732, the
son of Augustine Washington, who owned a number of
plantations in Virginia. Washington’s great-grandfather
had left Northamptonshire, England, in 1657, settled in
Virginia, and become a member of the Virginia House of
Burgesses. His grandson Augustine had become wealthy
and purchased several estates, including Bridges Creek,
where George was brought up.
Little detail is known of Washington’s earliest years,
and it is now accepted that the famous story in which
the young George admitted chopping down a cherry
tree was an invention of one of his early biographers,
Mason Weems. Washington attended a small local
school where he studied some Latin, and his notes from
that time on “Rules of Civility” have been preserved. He
appears to have been self-taught in many areas and spent
much of his time with his father, seeing how a planta-
tion was run and learning about the iron and smelting
business the family owned. He was put in charge of the
Hunting Creek estate, where he learned to grow tobacco
and oversaw a large number of slaves. He also learned
the science of surveying and soon became expert in that
profession.
In 1743, when Washington was only 11, his father
died and he was left in the care of his older half brother
Lawrence. He lived with Lawrence and another half
brother, Augustine, on the Hunting Creek estate, whose
name Lawrence changed to Mount Vernon in memory
of the English admiral Edward Vernon, under whom
he had served. Washington applied himself to surveying,
and in 1748 he surveyed the extensive Virginia estates of
Thomas, Lord Fairfax, keeping a detailed diary of his ex-
periences that has given later historians valuable insight
into his thinking at that time. The following year, with
Lord Fairfax’s assistance, he was named as official sur-Engraving of General George Washington at the Battle of Trenton, 26 December 1776
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